We were looking for something a little different
for Memorial 2005 -- a place that we have never been to before.
We have been to Onamia so many times in the last few years, that it
was starting to get kind of boring, so we wound up at Indian Creek.
The site for this event was actually brand new. The former
site had to be abandoned -- I'm not sure why.

The new site was definitely green.
They had dug a small mud pit, but only had a layer of clay in it.
This held the water great, but it wouldn't mix into anything that could
get anyone stuck. They needed to bring in some black dirt, or at
least some other type of soil that would soak up the water and get mushy.

There weren't any significant changes for
me this year -- just a good cleaning, and the usual maintenance, with the
exception of tearing down and rebuilding the rear axle. It turns out
that my seals were leaking (the wrong way), and at some point I got a LOT
of mud in the housing. Apparently, I ran this way for some time,
because it had all mixed up into this sort of molasses like slurry of clay
and 90wt. Let's just say I had a really fun time cleaning it out.

NOT!

I finally managed to get Brian to get his truck "DBS"
out of mothballs to run at this one too. I helped him build this
truck five years ago, and it made it's first and up until this weekend's
only run on Labor Day weekend 2005.

That was back when Highlander was still co-owned by me
and Jason, and was out of commission due to a bent frame - the one that
caused me to build the new frame.

These first few shots show Brian's truck stretching it's legs. This
was a good ego building pit for everyone there. I don't think I saw
a single truck get stuck all day long - unless they got the plugs wet!

Of course after five years off, it's a good
idea to make sure everything is still attached and running properly.
I think that you can see from the big grin on his face that everything
checked out A-OK.

Of course if Brian can't get stuck, you know that
Highlander won't. There were no alternatives, and we had come all
this way - there has to be some way to have a bit more fun....

Ah yes, SPEED!

We sort of turned it into a game of Where's Waldo - the
mud truck version. Can you find the mud truck in each of these
pictures????

(hint - if you can't see the truck,
look for the exhaust plumes)

Of course, there is only so long that you can do laps around a dirty
puddle.

Here are a few more pictures from before we lost
interest.

We packed it up before the end of the day. There
just wasn't really anything more to do.